HP: Day before Budget session, BJP holds state-wide protests on closure of institutions

Shimla: Just a day before the month-long Budget session of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the opposition BJP held state-wide protests, took-out rallies in major towns, including Shimla and submitted a memorandum to Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla.

Building up a strong momentum against the government on the closure of 900 institutions, 19 newly opened colleges and dozens of health centre and sub-divisional officers, the BJP on Monday set the tone for a stormy session of the House.

BJP leaders and workers, led by former chief minister Jairam Thakur took out a protest march, raised slogans against the Chief Minister and demanded the reopening of the institutions which the previous government had sanctioned on public demand.

Thakur was accompanied by former minister Suresh Bhardwaj, former speaker and MLA Vipin Parmar, state BJP general secretary and MLA Rakesh Jamwal and other party office bearers.

The BJP leaders later met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla and placed before him the signatures obtained from across the state against the closure of institutions.

Thakur said that governments keep changing but no regime in the past has acted with a political vendetta. “We never expected that the government will take such a drastic step. The CM took oath on December 11 and on the very next day a decision was taken to de-notify the institutions opened by us,” said Thakur while addressing the party workers.

He asserted that while Chief Minister claims that the party had come to power with a popular mandate winning 40 seats in the 68-member House but in reality, there is a difference of just 0.09 per cent votes polled for the Congress and the BJP in the November 2022 elections.

He quoted a cartoon going around in social media terming Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu as ‘lock-priya’ Chief Minister because he had only been resorting to the closure of the institutions opened during the BJP regime and also on public demand.

He ridiculed that even the colleges which had become functional and started benefitting the girls from the area, one such in the Naina Devi constituency, have also been closed.

“When I ask the congress MLAs and ministers who have been advising the Chief Minister for such hasty action, they also are surprised as to why such actions were initiated without consulting them,” said Thakur.

He said, “Initially, the BJP thought that the government had taken a decision in a haste and will have a re-think on the issue but this trend continued in every department and recently 19 colleges were de-notified.”

He reminded that his government had made the institutions announced by the previous Virbhadra regime functional and not closed them.